Rory McIlroy surged Sunday in Scotland but one bad iron miss exposed the flaw that could wreck his Open Championship run at Royal Birkdale next week in England.
Rory McIlroy’s Open Championship preparation suddenly has a flashing red warning light ... his iron play.
McIlroy closed the Genesis Scottish Open with a blistering 6-under 64, charged into the top five and reminded everyone why he’ll arrive at Royal Birkdale as one of the most dangerous players in the field.
Yet the shot everyone remembered wasn’t a towering drive or a clutch birdie. It was a wild approach at the par-4 16th that sailed left into thick grass and triggered a brutally honest reaction.
“I’m so bad at golf,” McIlroy said as television microphones caught every word.
The line was funny because it was obviously absurd.
McIlroy had just produced the best round on the course. But the miss revealed the weakness that could derail his chase for a second Claret Jug.
McIlroy’s driver looked powerful again in Scotland, and his putting adjusted nicely to slower links surfaces. The irons were another story.
He struggled badly during Saturday’s 73, losing more than two strokes to the field with his approach game after a familiar left miss crept back into his swing.
That problem has bothered McIlroy before, particularly when practicing or competing in a left-to-right wind.
His swing path and clubface can drift too far left, turning a manageable miss into a costly escape from fescue, bunkers or worse.
“At least I know what I’m doing,” McIlroy said. “It’s a matter of trying to rectify it.”
That’s the encouraging part. McIlroy isn’t searching blindly for an answer.
He plans to use three full practice days at Royal Birkdale to rehearse in the opposite wind and straighten out the pattern.
He also visited the course two weeks earlier, giving him more freedom to focus on mechanics instead of learning every contour from scratch.
The bigger question is whether three days are enough.
Since completing the career Grand Slam by winning the Masters in April, McIlroy has made only five starts and posted two top-10 finishes, including a tie for seventh at the PGA Championship.
Scotland represented his strongest sustained push since Augusta, but his uneven iron play kept him from turning contention into another trophy.
“I don’t feel like it’s too far away,” McIlroy said.
It probably isn’t. But at Royal Birkdale, “not too far away” can become a missed green, a buried lie and a championship slipping away before Sunday.
